A couple things I think need to be addressed.
* No parachutes. This encourages using aircraft as taxis. Not to tute my own horn but I am a pretty good pilot and I can wipe out enemy ground targets like there is no tomorrow (even with a gamepad!) I don't mind sharing the air craft BUT I loath those who get in a plane and use it as a taxi to the nearest flag to cap it. What a waste of resources! If you won't take away the parachutes then at least take away their guns (give them a pistol). Even when parachuting for the right reasons (e.g. a good pilot on your six or getting nailed by AA) and bailing only to cap an unprotected flag it seems quite cheap, especially 12v12. It also takes away a hard earned K for the other pilot/AA gunner. If DICE cannot disable chutes or force a useless class on pilots, then why not make the cieling really, really high? This way aircraft, AA guns, snipers, etc can pick the pilot off on the way down.
* C4 is unreliable. I don't know how many times I put C4 down and detonated only to have nothing happen.
* Spotting. I wish 'spotting' enemy targets was more intuitive. It is odd in the plane to see a plane but it not show up on the minimap but it is on the HUD directional windows when it gets behind you--or the reverse, I never see a plane but it is on the minimap. I can see the later as my friendlies "spotting" it for me, but when I have made visual contact with an object it should be on the HUD. This is really annoying with tanks. You see them and can see someone is in it but it doesn't go onto the minimap or, more often, it isn't "designated" on screen. So you see all the red triangles for the troops but not the tank??? Personally, I would prefer all the troops NOT be visible from the aircraft because they are pretty cheap kills--the triangles give them away before I can even see them and I can straif theme with ease.
On the other hand I don't think Scott or Robert will agree that making Tanks more visible to me in the air is a good idea
On the other hand I cannot seem to get AA units spotted on a regular basis, even though I see them... and feel them!
* Lag. For having servers the game can be extremely laggy. Between the lag and bullet speedcertain tasks like sniping, dogfighting, and AA have an extra layer of variability that don't make them quite as accessible.
* Squads. Squads, Invites, Chat, etc are some of the most broken I have seen. Utterly suprising considering how much experience DICE has with the genre. The lack of ability to give basic commands, spot targets, or anyone to figure out how the "Frontline" is determined is ... frustrating. The lack of "team" in a team game is frustrating. As an aside, I wish my squad was Green on the mini-map.
* No Small Group Games. A small number of friends wanted to do some dogfighting (2v2) but we couldn't. This is a bummer
I really like the game and I am not sure ODST will pull we away for long. DICE did a lot of good things (games feel quite active for 12v12, the destruction fits WWII well, air strikes are done well, etc) but I hope some, if not all, of the above can be addressed.
Btw, great advertising for BFBC2. Hopefully communitity feedback helps BFBC2 ... and we can all hope for a full fledged 1944!
